SCPs are modern folklore.
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I was born around 1983 so in many ways this speech defined the international political climate of my youth. In the speech Ronald Reagan seeks win over his Christian evangelical supporters to the cause of fighting communism (in the early 80s this was feeling less and less urgent) by talking about how "stopping communism" was in line with Christian values.
But this was an era of US foreign policy that was driven more by business interests than any moral ideals.
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Among Evangelicals the need to do "foreign wars" was increasingly questioned. In an era of greater media centralization a single great speech by a president could still be blown up into a moment (and 'the gipper*' was pretty good at speeches) so the narrative was that this wonderful message sealed the deal and lay all those worries to rest.
America was good and helping everyone by "stopping communism" and Jesus agrees.
3/
* tf is a 'gipper'?
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SCPs are modern folklore. The universe and associated media are very popular. I don't think the SCP fanbase is especially interested in politics or literally analysis. SCPs gain fame (infamy?) by being creepy, by having the right mix of plausible and horrific.
This is why I find SCP-1981 especially interesting. It's a haunted VHS tape of Ronald Reagan delivering his "Evil Empire" speech to the National Association of Evangelicals.
SCP-1981 - SCP Foundation
The SCP Foundation's 'top-secret' archives, declassified for your enjoyment.
The SCP Foundation (scp-wiki.wikidot.com)
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@futurebird Love that one!
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Among Evangelicals the need to do "foreign wars" was increasingly questioned. In an era of greater media centralization a single great speech by a president could still be blown up into a moment (and 'the gipper*' was pretty good at speeches) so the narrative was that this wonderful message sealed the deal and lay all those worries to rest.
America was good and helping everyone by "stopping communism" and Jesus agrees.
3/
* tf is a 'gipper'?
OK ... but what about the SCP? Well it is a VHS: "Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking" -- this is a reference to "George Bush Cut Up While Talking" which is an art video where GWB is made to say absurd and obscene things by recutting the footage.
The author of the SCP took the title *literally* and Reagan physically disintegrates as he talks. Each time you watch it's a little different. This means it's supernatural and so "The Foundation" must hide it. 4/
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Among Evangelicals the need to do "foreign wars" was increasingly questioned. In an era of greater media centralization a single great speech by a president could still be blown up into a moment (and 'the gipper*' was pretty good at speeches) so the narrative was that this wonderful message sealed the deal and lay all those worries to rest.
America was good and helping everyone by "stopping communism" and Jesus agrees.
3/
* tf is a 'gipper'?
@futurebird all the answers wiktionary has to that question are specifically citations of books about Reagan in particular, so we decided we don't care enough to answer it. heh.
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Among Evangelicals the need to do "foreign wars" was increasingly questioned. In an era of greater media centralization a single great speech by a president could still be blown up into a moment (and 'the gipper*' was pretty good at speeches) so the narrative was that this wonderful message sealed the deal and lay all those worries to rest.
America was good and helping everyone by "stopping communism" and Jesus agrees.
3/
* tf is a 'gipper'?
@futurebird searching "the hopper etymology" is pretty interesting, actually. Though pretty trivial too.
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OK ... but what about the SCP? Well it is a VHS: "Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking" -- this is a reference to "George Bush Cut Up While Talking" which is an art video where GWB is made to say absurd and obscene things by recutting the footage.
The author of the SCP took the title *literally* and Reagan physically disintegrates as he talks. Each time you watch it's a little different. This means it's supernatural and so "The Foundation" must hide it. 4/
So why does this SCP "work" ?
I don't think you need to dig very deep to understand it. A politician gives a "pivotal" speech later we come to see the dishonesty of that speech.
Like a haunted house the tape begins to expose the true nature and violence behind the ideas in the speech.
But would someone who loved Ronald Reagan see it the same way?
5/5
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SCPs are modern folklore. The universe and associated media are very popular. I don't think the SCP fanbase is especially interested in politics or literally analysis. SCPs gain fame (infamy?) by being creepy, by having the right mix of plausible and horrific.
This is why I find SCP-1981 especially interesting. It's a haunted VHS tape of Ronald Reagan delivering his "Evil Empire" speech to the National Association of Evangelicals.
SCP-1981 - SCP Foundation
The SCP Foundation's 'top-secret' archives, declassified for your enjoyment.
The SCP Foundation (scp-wiki.wikidot.com)
1/
@futurebird the SCP creator/writer community recently had to boot an SCP writer who was using the horror context to do real world creep ass shit to other would be contributors.
I was, unfortunately, not super surprised to find out that horror writers using the horror context to nonconsensually do horrifying stuff to people in the horror community is fairly common, because a lot of fans and writers have trouble differentiating enjoying the horror genre from behaving horrifically and having poor social skills and poor social calibration or predatory mindsets.
But as a casually interested SCP reader (occasionally), I was glad to know the community was working hard to get true predators out of the community.
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So why does this SCP "work" ?
I don't think you need to dig very deep to understand it. A politician gives a "pivotal" speech later we come to see the dishonesty of that speech.
Like a haunted house the tape begins to expose the true nature and violence behind the ideas in the speech.
But would someone who loved Ronald Reagan see it the same way?
5/5
I just want to add that looking back on 1981... it's been bad before. Bad like it is now. And that kind of gives me hope.
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Among Evangelicals the need to do "foreign wars" was increasingly questioned. In an era of greater media centralization a single great speech by a president could still be blown up into a moment (and 'the gipper*' was pretty good at speeches) so the narrative was that this wonderful message sealed the deal and lay all those worries to rest.
America was good and helping everyone by "stopping communism" and Jesus agrees.
3/
* tf is a 'gipper'?
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@futurebird Reagan played Gipp in a movie about his coach. He later used the “win one for the Gipper” line in speeches for both himself and Bush.
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@futurebird Reagan played Gipp in a movie about his coach. He later used the “win one for the Gipper” line in speeches for both himself and Bush.
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@futurebird it’s so hollow and over-stretched, just like all the other shit we “have to” understand about these people.
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Among Evangelicals the need to do "foreign wars" was increasingly questioned. In an era of greater media centralization a single great speech by a president could still be blown up into a moment (and 'the gipper*' was pretty good at speeches) so the narrative was that this wonderful message sealed the deal and lay all those worries to rest.
America was good and helping everyone by "stopping communism" and Jesus agrees.
3/
* tf is a 'gipper'?
@futurebird Oh, I know this one! He got the nickname "the Gipper" from a movie he starred in that was about the football coach Knute Rockne, whose star quarterback George Gipp (hence the nickname) was in a car wreck. (small plane maybe? neither were particularly safe in the late 1930s)
Rockne urged the team to get out and win one for the Gipper, and they did, and Reagan played the part of the Gipper in a movie about it.
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@futurebird Reagan played Gipp in a movie about his coach. He later used the “win one for the Gipper” line in speeches for both himself and Bush.
@Moss @futurebird WTF this is *as bad* as reagan telling stories about being a wwii fighter pilot
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So why does this SCP "work" ?
I don't think you need to dig very deep to understand it. A politician gives a "pivotal" speech later we come to see the dishonesty of that speech.
Like a haunted house the tape begins to expose the true nature and violence behind the ideas in the speech.
But would someone who loved Ronald Reagan see it the same way?
5/5
@futurebird Sidenote: the earliest version of that SCP had a mention of "unfolders" (changed to "unravellers" to avoid plagiarism accusations), which referenced Zach Parsons' "That Insidious Beast" (https://www.somethingawful.com/series/that-insidious-beast/), a story of an alternate US driven by religious fervor but with actually-existing supernatural(-seeming) entities driving cataclysmic violence.
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So why does this SCP "work" ?
I don't think you need to dig very deep to understand it. A politician gives a "pivotal" speech later we come to see the dishonesty of that speech.
Like a haunted house the tape begins to expose the true nature and violence behind the ideas in the speech.
But would someone who loved Ronald Reagan see it the same way?
5/5
@futurebird it's like a Dorian Gray via Blockbuster, I love it
I mean, totally cursed, but very fitting for that moment
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@Aletheia_E @Moss @futurebird i hadnt heard that one but i would not be surprised in the slightest. the reagan documentary series on showtime was very....informative.
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So why does this SCP "work" ?
I don't think you need to dig very deep to understand it. A politician gives a "pivotal" speech later we come to see the dishonesty of that speech.
Like a haunted house the tape begins to expose the true nature and violence behind the ideas in the speech.
But would someone who loved Ronald Reagan see it the same way?
5/5
I've just realized that the "Evil Empire" speech was on March 8, 1983 and I let the name of the SCP confused me about the year. But it doesn't change much about these observations.
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I just want to add that looking back on 1981... it's been bad before. Bad like it is now. And that kind of gives me hope.
When I read accounts of this speech there is a lot of focus on the phrase "evil empire" and how more secular media found it inflammatory. There was a "presidents don't speak like this" freak out. I think this misses the things that made the speech necessary from the perspective of the interventionist right wing political stance.
They were LOSING the evangelicals over this nonsense. They needed to frame it as a moral battle against "communism."
And it worked.
